Ham Radio Now

The audio version of our TV programs for and about Amateur Radio (Ham Radio). The video version is hosted at www.HamRadioNow.tv (and, to be totally honest, on YouTube). Our shows come in three flavors: Talk Shows, Seminars/Forums, and mini-documentaries. Sorry for the mash-up, but any episode may be in one (or more) of those categories.

Categories

CERT - Community Emergency Response Team - is a FEMA program that trains and utilizes citizens in local communities in assisting emergency responders. It's not just communications, but it is a natural for a ham radio tie-in, and that's happening with CERT groups around the country.

Jeff McGrath N1SC is a new ham and very energetic CERT volunteer in Lehi UT, just south of Salt Lake City. He talks to David and Gary about all that he does.

Toward the end of the conversation, we get into the ARRL's petition asking members for comment on a possible new entry-level class of license.

Gary tosses in some maps and web sites, but mostly it's a standard talk show with a Radio Rating of A.

Craig Fugate KK4INZ was FEMA Administator for the entire Obama presidency. Now (for the moment, anyway) a private citizen... and ham... he's looking forward to attending his local radio club meeting.

But his interest and commitment to both Amateur Radio and EmComm continues. In this episode he talks with David and Gary about what hams will need to do in the future to remain a valuable public service asset in emergencies.

You may notice with apt irony that Gary's Internet service failed in the middle of the conversation (a flaky 'tap' in the Spectrum/Time Warner pedestal down the block). Gary switched to his phone's 'hot spot', which reached his preset data cap and shut the conversation down again. He persuaded Arvin to cough up the funds to buy a little more bandwidth from Google Fi.

The Women's March on Washington was a (pardon the expression) HUGE event the day after President Trump's inauguration. While it was politically charged, it was also an event that needed communications assistance to keep participants safe. The cell phone system worked, but it was so overloaded that even the usually reliable text messaging slowed to a crawl.

Our guests Arthur Feller W4ART and Christine Axsmith KC3CIF put together an ad-hoc group of about 30 hams, drawn partly from the group that provides communications for the Marine Corps Marathon each year. They tell us their fascinating story, including many real-world lessons for hams participating in any large-scale event.

Another mash-up of two podcasts! This time we join Jason Johnstion KC5HWB'sHamRadio 2.0show for a talkfest from the Orlando HamCation. We recorded more or less first thing Friday morning, then Gary headed out with Jason to shoot some interviews that will end up on Jason's show.

Our special guest and star attraction is HRO's Katie Allen WY7YL, marking her second appearance on HamRadioNow, and her first on HamRadio 2.0.

There's very little serious about this episode... just a lot of fun. And being a talkfest, it would normally earn a Radio Rating of A, but the video shows us having all that fun. OK, it translates to the audio pretty well. Hopefully your podcast app lets you see the poster, and you can imagine the rest.

Last year the ARRL Board's Ethics Committee recommended removing incumbent SE Division Director Doug Rehman K4AC from the ballot for re-election, and the Board did that, leaving Rehman's opponent and previous Director Greg Sarratt W4OZK the only candidate running. With no further nominations at the end of the nomination period, the Board declared Sarratt elected.

The Board and the Ethics Committee didn't give any reason for removing Rehman from the ballot, prompting an editorial from CQ Editor Rich Moseson W2VU for more transparency on the ARRL Board, a position that Rehman had been advocating during his reelection 'campaign.' Moseson didn't take sides in the election outcome, just the opaque nature of the decision.

At the Orlando HamCation, ARRL member Jim Schilling KG4JSZ had a booth asking ARRL SE Division members to sign a recall petition against Sarratt. Gary asked Jim to come to the SIB (Studio In a Booth) to talk about the issue.

Gary also asked ARRL officials at the HamCation to come discuss it. They declined, and recommended that we talk to ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Sean Kutzko KX9X. Sean was not at the hamfest, so we'll contact him as soon as we can.

Meanwhile, here's our talk with Jim Shilling. The talker gets a Radio Rating of A, especially if you follow the links to the web pages with more detail, or do some digging yourself.

Over the coming weeks I will pull the curtain back on the ARRL Board and the bleak future the League faces unless there is serious reform—reform that will only happen if the membership pays attention to whether or not they are being served by their representatives. I'll be posting a number of motions to address issues with governance and ethics, motions that I will make at the January 2017 Board meeting if reelected.

In the parking lot of my hotel in Orlando, I ran into Phil Mc Elrath K5BBC. Phil had 5 antennas on his roof (same as me), but not as many scattered around the rest of his vehicle. So I was winning the mobile contest until he showed me his super-clean installation. Put me to shame.

Phil is also involved with the Emcomm-1 vehicle, a privately owned truck equipped (mostly with ICOM stuff) to be an Interop bridge - connecting any RF to any other RF, in the field, where it's needed. It's based in Florida. We talk about it some and I got some B-Roll video, but we'll go in depth later on Skype. Dave Goldenberg W0DHG will want to get his hooks into that episode, I'm sure.

So there's a lot to see, but most is pretty well described in our dialog. I'll give it a Radio Rating of B, but note that it's pretty short for a HamRadioNow episode. You just might have time to watch the video!

How will manufacturers differentiate themselves, and what will they be throwing at consumers in the way of data and capabilities?

Yes, these guys are from Flex, so they've got a point of view, but they're pretty candid about this segment of the business... that's about to take over the whole business.

The Radio Rating is A+. This is a pure talker, recorded at the Orlando HamCation in HamRadioNow's famous Studio in a Booth. If you get a custom picture with this podcast, you'll see Tim (right) and Don (left) and the booth, and that's pretty much all you need to see.

We begin by recovering from the faux press of the RECORD button to show the RAM mount Then we're on the road.

The RAV4 has two motors. One under the hood. The other just above Gary's jaw.

At least this 3-hour tour won't leave you stranded on a tropical island. It'll just feel like it.

Radio Rating-wise, the first few minutes are like PART ONE - you'll miss a lot without pictures. But after that, there's really not a lot to look at. The NC and SC tourism boards might not agree, but I-40 and I-95 are mostly strips of pavement bordered by trees (and billboards). We even failed (again) to get to the top of the Sombrero at Pedro's South of the Border. So this episode gets a Radio Rating of A-. The minus is mostly because of those first few minutes of the show, and probably somebody likes Interstate highways and trees.

I've received a lot of requests to provide some details on my mobile installation. You've seen the radio stack, and some of the antennas in one show or another. But as I prepared to get on the road to head to the Orlando HamCation, I decided to start with a tour of the whole thing.

And I almost succeeded! Here's that "tour," but conspicuously missing will be the 'heart' of the installation - the mounting bracket from RAM MOUNTS. I fat-fingered the camera's record button, and ended up missing the footage where I described that. I'll fix that in Part TWO (yet to be shot). I did record a lot of on-the-road of Day One of the drive, but ran out of time in the hotel to edit it. I'll get to it all as soon as I can. But meantime, enjoy Part ONE.

This episode is so visual that I almost decided to skip the audio podcast. But it's the start of the epic Episode 300. So Part ONE here gets a Radio Rating of D- (the lowest grade I've given!). The actual on-the-road parts, coming soon to a podcast near you, will make up for that.

We forgot to say it, but this is EmComm Extra #6 with a Radio Rating of A+.

Jeff Dahn KB3ZUK, President of W3HAC, the HacDC Amateur Radio Club, is our guest. Jeff helped with communications for the National Park Service during the Presidential Inauguration and the protest Women's March in January. He was invited because of his extensive participation in the ARRL's National Parks On The Air program last year. Jeff activated most of the parks in the Washington DC area.

In this episode, he'll talk about the NPOTA activity, then his work during President Trump's inauguration.

Meanwhile, Jeff's club, the W3HAC HacDC ARC, provided communications for the Women's March on Washington the next day (while Jeff was still at the NPS comm center). We hope to have that story on HamRadioNow in a couple of weeks (the Orlando HamCation is getting in the way).

HamRadioNow's newish co-host David Goldenberg W0DHG wears many hats. One of them is Scoutmaster for Troop 22in Woodland Hills, CA, where he introduces his Scouts to Amateur Radio, among many other life skills.

Scouting is one of the most effective connections between Amateur Radio and young people. In this episode, David and Gary KN4AQ explore that connection with Jim Wilson K5ND. Jim also wears many hats with the Boy Scouts. He's Chairman of the National Radio Scouting Committee; National Jamboree on the Air Organizer; a member of the World JOTA-JOTI Team; and President of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association.

(Gary made it to Cub Scout Webelo).

This Skype-based talker has only a few web graphics and videos to break up the faces, but that earns it a Radio Rating of A+.

Brennan Price N4QX is the former Chief Technology Officer for the ARRL (now with the EchoStar satellite company). He spent the past few years mostly in the international arena – the ITU and the World Radio Conferences – helping Amateur Radio acquire new spectrum and defending the spectrum we have now.

Here he gives the 2016 ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference 'keynote' talk at the Saturday banquet. He'll address the new technologies and millimeter wave spectrum that will be so important to Amateur Radio's Future.

Most of Brennan's slides are text, and he covers them well, so we'll assign a Radio Rating of B to this audio version